


The Sadim Touch

by Numerix



Category: K-pop, TWICE (Band)
Genre: F/F, King midas au, full-on angst, kind of, some allusions to A Tale of Two Cities, squint for fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 08:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14787038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Numerix/pseuds/Numerix
Summary: She was the golden beauty—rare and unattainable. It was no surprise that she loved the tale of King Midas, for when he reigned, everything he touched had turned to gold. But Minatozaki Sana will learn that not everything is as golden as she thinks.





	The Sadim Touch

**Author's Note:**

> There's some implied stuff on here that may be really triggering. It's not that graphic but a lot of it is implied like depression, PTSD, and traumatic childhood experiences. Again, I didn't really get into too much depth but just in case.

_You’ve become the person you never wanted to be_

_The one who cries herself to sleep,_

_Drinks herself to oblivion,_

_Loses herself in her own story._

 

_You’ve tarnished your hands,_

_Corrupted your life,_

_Caged your heart,_

_Felt every part of your soul escape your hold._

 

_You deserve nothing, yet everything,_

_For you remain pure in your stead,_

_Held your pride like no other,_

_Loved with what’s left._

 

_Your delicacy is handled only with the most fragile of hands._

_But golden hands can never reach the tarnished ones._

_You deserve nothing, yet everything in your story._

_And for that, I am sorry._

  
 

All she ever wanted to be was to love someone and be loved back. To choose unconditionality was something she would do willingly, almost obsessively, almost routinely. To love with her whole heart was something she would foster slowly, almost obsessively, almost routinely.

 

It didn’t take long for her heart to feel the effects of the unrequited—a damaged heart with degraded thoughts that no one can and will ever love her back. It took a heartbreak after heartbreak after heartbreak for her brain to latch on to the idea that there is no one to mend the pieces of her own.

 

It was perhaps the most tragic thought in existence: she would choose unconditional love, but no one could choose her.

 

That is until Myoui Mina entered the shattered life of Minatozaki Sana.

  
 

Meeting her was a scene out of a movie. The sun was setting on the horizon, the period of two lights ready to meet its end. The golden hour, they called it. But the hour seemed to stop when she first laid her eyes on her, twilight lasting longer than it should have to. The lingering light loomed above the head of Minatozaki Sana and she snaps out of her hypnotic state when the girl walks towards her.

 

“Is this seat taken?” With the chaos and noise in the background, she nearly misses the soft voice ringing in her ears. But her ears comb through the whispers and laughs, focusing her hearing on what she concludes as probably another unsuccessful bout with love.

 

However, there is a hope this figure brings with her, a hope she herself once carried before realities have condemned her to her own personal hell.

 

“No. You can have it,” she manages a response.

 

“Thank you.” The figure takes her seat and pulls out a book. Sana is curious, hoping to strike up a conversation, but she is snapped out of her concentration by her friend who takes the seat opposite of her.

  
 

The girl becomes a fascination to Minatozaki Sana. She sees her at the diner at the same time every day in the same state she left her from the day before—a coffee on her left, her phone on her right, and a book entrapping her whole. It is a different book every week, which makes Sana wonder how many stories her mind can possibly process.

 

Yet, there is a sadness that the girl brings that Sana is even more engrossed with. The aura to which this girl carries with her is strong and isolated. Strong in the sense that everyone knows; isolated in the sense that no one else could bear the burden but her. Her sadness is just as fascinating as the subject as if it is the depth she has been looking for her whole life. The idea to be the savior when someone is drowning, the attraction is just as dangerous. Sana finds herself even more drawn to her, like a ship to a lodestone rock, like a prospector to its gold.

 

She leaves at the same time every single day, her presence immediately lost to the crowd and the public. Sana never sees her leave, it is too painful to see her leave. She would much rather see her arrive; thus, it is Sana who always leaves first. Sana is then left with the same bitter aftertaste, her daily decision that it is better for the girl to stay a fantasy in her head. She hates to see another ship crashing unto the lodestone rock.

  
 

A year and a month. Sana never imagined that the journey would be that long nor would the ship have actually arrived. Yet there she is, opposite of Sana, a wine glass on her left, her phone on her right and Sana capturing her attention.

 

“I just really love the tale of King Midas. I don’t know. There’s something about it,” she confesses after dinner. The restaurant was badly lit but the presence somehow made it more homely.

 

Her name is Myoui Mina, Sana learns a year and a month later. She is a double major in literary studies and psychology at the college nearby the diner she and Sana frequent. She also discovers that Mina has noticed her, too

 

_“Hey, I'm Sana.”_

 

_“I was wondering when you were going to talk to me.”_

 

_“Oh, you've noticed me?”_

 

_“You're not as subtle as you think, miss.”_

 

_“Sana is fine.”_

 

_“I'm Mina.”_

 

Mina takes a sip of her drink, the action pulling Sana in a state of bewilderment. She thinks how anyone could be that attractive just drinking. “I can understand why you would,” she tells her.

 

She hums with delight, “What do you mean?”

 

“From what I gather from the stories you’ve told me, you’re the golden daughter. It’s like everything you touch just somehow gets better. They turn to gold if you will. Isn’t that why you ultimately wanted to become a doctor? You just wanted everyone to get better.”

 

Sana commits the conversation to memory, ensuring that no words are ever lost to the dark crevices in her mind. “But you’re forgetting that the Midas touch is a curse.”

 

“You got me there. But there’s nothing wrong with wanting something golden in your life. I’d love to have the Midas touch. To an extent, of course.”

 

With that thought, she wonders what it would like to truly turn everything into gold. She looks down upon her own hands and cannot help but to think that all she’s ever touched up to this point had been tarnished by her instruments of ruin. “To an extent, yes.”

  
 

They both start out slow. The dance would be all too painful if it had turned out to be a quick passion burning out in a few weeks—like all of Sana’s past relationships. But Myoui Mina was different from her previous girlfriends, flings, lovers—whatever they liked to consider themselves.

 

Myoui Mina reciprocates the love Sana gave. She stays when Sana asked her to. She holds her when the nightmares and traumas creep up to her at the worst possible times. She calms her down when her screams would shake her entire body awake with just the earnestness of her voice. Myoui Mina is the love Sana had craved, the love that could mend her shattered heart. Myoui Mina had chosen her back.

 

She was terrified of touching her. She still hadn’t understood the extent of her abilities to corrupt even the most incorruptible. It had happened in the past. She couldn’t take the risk and ruin the one good thing she had in her life. Myoui Mina was the golden thread who knitted Sana’s heart whole again and she was going to make sure that her tarnished hands were never reaching Mina’s.

 

But Sana can never win in this life, she realizes. In poetic irony, the exact opposite of her thoughts is what come to life. Mina is the first one to grab Sana’s hand, her fingers filling the gap between Sana’s fingers. She had never felt so alive, yet she had feared of dragging Mina down to the grave with her. Mina is the first to lean in, capturing Sana’s lips into a heated kiss as they both vie for dominance. Her hands don’t quite know where to go, but she makes sure they’re holding her steady.

 

Sana learns that Mina is observant despite her nose constantly inside a book. But she sees and knows everything and after eight months of dating, she sees and knows everything about Sana. She knows of the reasons that keep Sana awake; she knows of the causes for her nightmares that trouble her in her sleep; she knows of the pasts that still haunt her present.

 

“The only thing golden in this life is you, Sana,” Mina assures her one day when she is awakened by the monsters in her head again. “Your hair is blessed with the sun’s radiance every day, your personality dipped in the shallows of the river of Styx, you who is still so unaware that you harbor the gift of the Midas touch.”

 

“Are all lit majors this poetic?” she speaks through her tears.

 

Mina tries to coax her back to sleep with her soothing voice and smooth touches. Her hand sifts through Sana’s hair, while her other arm holds her body steady with her own. “Just the lucky ones.”

 

It seems to be working for the golden-haired beauty as her eyes dip slowly to a close. “How do you know you’re lucky?” she still asks, desperate to hear her girlfriend’s voice.

 

“I have you,” she answers back.

  
 

“I don’t know why you’re still with me,” Sana asks her a year into their relationship.

 

Hre girlfriend puts the book down on her lap. They’re both on the couch in their shared apartment enjoying a rainy day. “Sana, today is our one-year anniversary. Are you still really doubting that I love you?”

 

“Sometimes,” she admits. The noise from the thunderstorm nearly scares her, but looking at Mina keeps her rooted on the couch with their legs in a tangled mess.

 

“Minatozaki Sana, I love you.” It doesn’t take her a beat. Sana realizes that it has become Mina’s first instinct to cherish and protect her.

 

Myoui Mina is patient. She loves her despite her scars, holds her despite her tremulous state, kisses her despite her tarnished lips, and stays with her despite her ruined soul. Myoui Mina makes her forget about her past and her own brokenness. She tells her she loves her when all she’s heard were echoing footsteps fading out into obscurity, she tells her truths when all she’s been fed were lies, she tells all the things Sana needs to hear when all she’s been told were the desires she can never have.

 

Mina turns the lights off in their shared apartment, grabs a cable and a speaker and plugs it into her phone. She scours through her playlist until landing on the perfect song to slow dance to.

 

She returns to the living room in a chivalrous manner. “Do you want to dance, Sana?” Mina extends her hand to her golden girlfriend.

 

“Yes,” she gladly accepts.

 

Myoui Mina makes it possible for Sana to love again. And for that, Sana thinks that she doesn’t deserve her.

  
 

“So if I have the Midas touch, what do you call people who have the opposite ability?” Sana ponders out loud.

 

It’s always Mina who hears her anyways. “I don’t know. What’s the opposite of gold?”

 

“Silver?” she asks innocently.

 

“I don’t buy it.”

 

Sana hums thoughtfully, “Maybe we should look at it a different way. If the Midas touch is supposed to bring you fortune—”

 

“—then what’s supposed to bring you misfortune?” Mina finishes. Sana nods in agreement. “How does the Sadim touch sound? Anyone who possesses it ruins everything they come into contact with.”

 

“The Sadim touch,” she lets the name roll off her tongue and travel to her consciousness. “It’s got a nice ring to it.”  
 

 

Mina had come from the same past, Sana realizes. Her own heart handled carelessly by such wrong people it makes Sana furious that anyone could hurt someone like Mina. It is through this awareness is Sana finally hit with the understanding of how they both came to be and why they were naturally attracted to each other.

 

“The broken ones always find each other,” her previous girlfriend had said before she exited out of Sana’s life.

 

Mina’s heart must have been just as shattered as Sana’s was when they first met. It explains the aura she sensed from her since day one— a sadness so strong and so isolated. Mina was just as broken as Sana. They needed someone to save and someone to save them, and they found that in each other.

 

Though as much as Sana had been relieved that it was she who was able to save Mina, it pained her to realize that it was not Mina who could save her.

  
 

Her first heartbreak came in the form of her mother abandoning her for another family, a better one at that. Her father was left with the tears of their only child, pieces of her heart sprawled across their living room floor. They both cried that night with the promise to never leave each other.

 

Her second heartbreak arrived too soon with death reclaiming her father for himself, selfish, cold, ruthless, and unforgiving to a young Minatozaki Sana. She would cry endlessly for weeks with no one else to hear. There were no more arms to hold her that night. She had only her strong-willed heart to keep her steady.

 

Her succeeding heartbreaks were ones that had come to her romantic in nature. Too many had come and gone for her to count. She couldn’t blame them. She was unlovable by nature.

 

Her life stood apart from her personality; no matter how much of an optimist she is, how enthusiastic she can become, how many smiles she put on, how many laughs she let out, and how much energy she has, she will never have the life she deserves—the love she deserves.

  
 

Her most painful heartbreak came in the form of Myoui Mina.

 

Leaving her was a scene out of a movie. Time seemed to stop, but her heart beat faster than it had ever done before. Her right hand hovers over the doorknob, her other on the suitcase handle. “Mina, I have to leave.”

 

“Oh, where are you going?” Mina looks up from her book. Her eyes begin to water after assessing the situation for five seconds.

 

Sana nearly breaks at the sight of her girlfriend—ex-girlfriend—staining their shared couch. “No, I mean. I have to leave you, us, our relationship. I can’t stay.”

 

Mina’s voice breaks, “Don’t do this.”

 

“I have to. I need to. I’m not good for you.”

 

She walks towards her at a quick pace. “I can be a better girlfriend. If that’s what you need. I will love you better,” she pleads in desperation. She hugs her legs, clinging on to her lifeline.

 

Sana can’t stand it. She tries to pry Mina away from her, tries to break her hold. But she’s just as strong as she was when she would hold Sana steady after being shaken awake by another nightmare. “It’s not you, Mina, I swear. It’s me.”

 

She lets go of the blonde’s legs, standing up from her position. “That’s bullshit, Sana. You know that I hate crap like that.” Mina doesn’t scream this. She can never yell at Sana, anyways, thought her tone is still ladened with wrath and hurt.

 

Sana reaches for Mina but decides against it when she withholds her hands. Instead, she says, “I ruin everything I touch, Mina. I’m only going to ruin you. I have the Sadim touch.”

 

It is Mina who first wipes Sana’s face, caressing the skin tainted by her own tears. “That doesn’t exist,” she whispers.

 

With a voice softer and lower than Mina’s, a voice nearly breaking just as Mina’s had been, she asks, “Then how do you explain me?”

 

“You’re the only golden thing in this life, Sana. In my life. You saved me,” she assures her one more time in the hopes that she would stay.

 

Sana is broken. Mina is broken. Two broken things cannot fix each other, Sana learns that night. Being with Mina was a fantasy—an imagined reality so true and genuine that Sana was willing to spend the rest of her life in it. But the golden-haired girl was merely a blonde, the false daughter of King Midas. And the harmless rain was a thunderstorm of catastrophic destruction in disguise and she knew that going down those waters can only end with the ship crashing onto the loadstone rock.

 

Mina could fix anything. She was the true daughter of King Midas. She had the ability to turn anyone and anything into gold. But Sana was the exception and she hadn’t broken out of the illusion until recently. She had put her so high up a pedestal that she forgot she never could climb that high, nor did she want anyone to stoop to her level. Sana’s hands were ruined by hell, whereas Mina’s were a gift from heaven. It was a tragic thought, really: golden hands should never reach her tarnished ones.

 

Her hand remains on Sana’s face, ignoring the cold Sana’s hellish tears often brought. She didn’t bother putting makeup on but she still feels bleeding mascara dripping down her face. “But you didn’t save me. You couldn’t. I am so beyond repair, Mina. I can’t drag you down with me.”

 

She tells her to let go of her and Mina obeys. Sana finally turns the doorknob and opens the door, exiting the way her old lovers did. When she closes the door, she hears Mina on the other side drop down to the floor, her body leaning against the cold wood.

 

“I was going to marry you,” Sana hears Mina confess.

 

“I was going to marry you, too.” This time Mina doesn’t hear her.

 

In spite of everything and in such poetic irony, when Mina stayed, Sana leaves the same way her past ghosts had left her.

  
 

Sana starts drinking again, starts crying herself to sleep again, starts losing herself in a tale of love and pain, for she knows nothing better. She consumes herself in her work, working overtime shifts at the hospital just to get her mind off Mina. She does anything that forces her to stay awake because she’s afraid of the dreams she’ll have of Mina.

 

Sana returns to the diner where she met Mina. It’s pure torture but it’s the only one that makes decent coffee to let her work more shifts. Nayeon tells her that Mina still frequents the diner from time to time, but it’s always at the same time. Sana makes sure she’s never there when Mina is.

 

“I was just with Mina actually. Helping her move out and all,” Nayeon tiptoes around the subject, but it has to be known.

 

It’s been five months and it still hurts like it did since day one. “Oh? How is she?”

 

“She’s okay, I guess. How are you supposed to be after getting out of a nearly three-year relationship?” She knows that she doesn’t mean any malicious intent, but she still feels targeted.

 

Sana’s grip on the coffee cup tightens, anything to hold her steady by this point will suffice for her. “So she’s not fine at all.”

 

“I found this actually.” Nayeon holds out a piece of paper. “I saw her eyeing it when we were cleaning up. It turns out she didn’t want to bring it with her. But it’s addressed to you. Maybe it’s just some unsaid words she wanted to tell you.”

 

“This is her private matter, Nayeon.”

 

He encourages her to take the letter. “She shared everything with you, Sana. Maybe she wants you to have this.”

 

Sana reluctantly grabs it, opens it, and reads the first line: “You’ve become the person you never wanted to be.” It’s enough for her to break.

 

When she finished the letter, albeit, with tears and incoherent thoughts unable to decipher the situation, she summons up her voice to inquire, “Is this about me or about her?”

 

Nayeon doesn’t reply. Mina doesn’t reply. Sana does.

 

She concludes that the poem is about them, together and individually and she realizes that Mina probably came to the same conclusion that they were so alike in their brokenness, in their delusions of salvation, in their illusions of love that they could never have worked together.

 

Sana dies a little knowing Mina is just a little bit more broken than when she first met her. She also smiles a little knowing that Mina is getting a bit better than when she left her the eve of their anniversary.

  
 

Sana ruins everything she touches, the Midas touch Mina claims she once possessed corrupted through her endless list of unsuccessful trysts.

 

It was an ideal day for a funeral if one would call it that. But the rain was forgiving that day, a mere trenchcoat enough to keep an individual warm and dry. There wasn’t much mud so Sana’s heels could walk properly on the graveyard ground.

 

“It is a tragic story. She was such a youthful expression taken away from us so soon. She loved and loved with all her and she was loved and loved back by everyone here who made her life complete. She was not always the happiest but she was always there to fix you. So golden, she was. It was contagious and effective.”

 

The tradition of throwing flowers into a grave always seemed ridiculous to Sana. She was too young and too heartbroken to even remember why it was so important. But Myoui Mina had changed all that. She would honor her friend in the way Mina would want Sana to honor anyone, with a symbol of love and remembrance.

 

Sana is reminded by the diner near Mina’s old university.

 

_“It’s been a year, Sana. When are you going to talk to her?”_

 

_“Technically, we talked on the first day.”_

 

_“Why don’t you just go ask her out for a cup of coffee or something?”_

 

_“I don’t want to ruin this, Nayeon. I’d rather stand back and watch from a distance.”_

 

_“That’s kind of stalkerish, you know.”_

 

_Nayeon pushes her stubborn friend in the direction of one Myoui Mina._

 

_“Hey, I’m Sana.”_

  
 

Sana returns to the same diner. This time, she is caught off guard with golden girl she once loved, the girl she still loves. She is the love Sana can never deserve and it sends shockwaves through her heart every time when she thinks of her. Yet here she stands in front of her—not a ghost but a reality.

 

“Hey, Sana. I saw you at the funeral, but you left too soon I didn’t get a chance to say hello.”

 

She breaks out of her own daze, “Oh, right, yes. I saw you there, too. Sorry. I must have been out of it.”

 

Her voice is still just as soft as when they first talked to each other and just as calming for when Mina would coax her back to sleep. “Nayeon was your best friend, so I understand. I’m really sorry. You really loved her, right?”

 

Sana can only nod because Mina is here in flesh and blood and they’re talking as if they’re acquaintances of some sort. Sana doesn’t complain, she wants to hear Mina’s voice anyways.

 

“Nayeon gave me your poem. I’m really sorry for leaving you.”

 

“Don’t be. I think we probably wouldn’t have worked out in the end anyway. We were too broken to step back and look at our relationship practically. The poem helped me realize that,” she admits.

 

“You’re still as poetic as ever. So how have you been?”

 

“Better. I—” she pauses in her consideration, “—I met someone. We’ve been married for a year now actually. Her name is Joy.” Sana notices the gold ring on Mina’s finger. “What about you?”

 

Sana tries not to break in front of Mina, someone she’s only ever wanted to be happy, yet had caused so much misery in her wake. “Don’t worry about me. I’m okay now, I think.”

 

“Can I say something?” Sana nods. “You fix everyone you meet, but you break yourself in the process. I was trying so hard for that not to happen to you.”

 

“I know and I’m sorry,” she acknowledges. Even after all these years the golden daughter only ever wants the best for her.

 

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Sana.”

 

“I have everything to be sorry for, Mina.”

 

Mina is the first to reach out to her. Her hand instinctively grabbing on to Sana’s. As if nothing has changed, Mina holds Sana steady into a hug. She whispers into her ear, “I truly hope you find your happiness. The love you deserve is out there.”

 

Sana is cursed with the Sadim touch, ruining everything she comes into contact with. How could someone like her ever find someone who loved her the way Mina did? How could someone like her ever find someone who loves Joy the way Mina does? Minatozaki Sana doesn’t deserve someone like Myoui Mina. She doesn’t deserve anyone as golden as her.

 

So she settles for something both she and Mina can be content with. If not, Mina’s concern would cast a shadow on both of their lives just as Sana’s leaving had done to theirs.

 

“Just tell me this. When we were together, were you happy?”

 

Mina lets go.

 

“I was.”

 

Sana breathes a sigh of relief.

 

“Then that’s enough for me.”

  
 

She frequents the same diner. It’s been five years since she broke up with Mina and the memory still wrecks her. She’ll do anything to forget her, but letting go is still harder than she ever thought imagined. She questions whether leaving Mina was a good idea.

 

Then she sees Mina walk in with a coffee cup on her left, Joy’s hand in her right and a smile on her face and Sana knows that that’s enough for her.

**Author's Note:**

> I will slowly exit out as my friends scold and berate me for this. They know who they are. And I am truly sorry.
> 
> If you liked it, hated it, or somewhere in the middle, leave a kudos or comment. Thank you for reading.


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